1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imaging preventing apparatus and an imaging preventing method and, in particular, it relates to a technology that allows the prevention of imaging without permission, such as pirating.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the significantly wide spread of imaging apparatus such as video cameras and digital still cameras, the reduction of the size of the apparatus has been fostered. In this situation, the acts of invasions of personal privacy and/or the right of publicity by easy imaging have been concerned.
Particularly, there are situations where images, which have been imaged without permission, are published on Internet websites, and serious problems have been caused by imaging without permission.
Many people do not like being imaged without permission, but a small-scale system that controls imaging based on the intension of a subject has not been developed yet.
For that reason, it is being considered that so-called pirating, for example, may be prevented by using a technology as proposed in JP-A-2005-223601 (Patent Document 1).
The technology in Patent Document 1 embeds specific pattern information and/or an IC tag in a subject, the imaging of which is not desired, such as a picture and a book in advance. A camera side recognizes the specific pattern information or IC tag information and is forcibly limited in (or prohibited against) the imaging. By not embedding such specific pattern information or an IC tag in a subject, which does not prohibit against imaging particularly, a camera can recognize that the subject does not have any specific pattern information or IC tag information and can perform imaging thereon.
Thus, the damage can be avoided from so-called “digital shoplifting” of a subject the imaging of which is not desired while imaging a subject, which is allowed to image, can be permitted freely.